1. I’ve read enough articles about the mystery
of consciousness. Some authors say that we don’t completely understand
consciousness yet, but we’re making progress, and it must be a matter of
neurons and electricity etc. Other authors say that consciousness, the
fact that consciousness is linked to a body, the way consciousness is linked to
a body, are all strange and difficult problems, maybe beyond our ability to solve.
2. My disposition is always to exorcise the existential
side of a question -- the sense that we have something at stake in answering it. Aristotle said that philosophy begins in wonder, but I
have mused to myself time and again that, according to that philosopher’s
own statement, it will not end with wonder. Modernist writers were at pains to make
the mundane luminous – but a light that shines too brightly is just as bad for
clear vision as darkness. I am of a mind to show the
pedestrian side of momentous things; intellectual inquiry I would reduce all
to a kind of invigorating but ultimately routine calisthenics.
3. So I say that very often, in my dullness, I
fail to see what is so curious about consciousness. I can think of two
questions in this regard that are held to be interesting. First, what
is consciousness “made” of, and how is that substance related to the materials
upon which we subsist and in which we move? Second, how is consciousness linked
to the body, and how is it that when I think to move my finger, my finger
actually moves?
4. Neither of these two questions impresses me
as it once might have. I will try briefly to explain why.
5. As for the first question, I find it
strange when people insist that there should only be one kind of thing in the
world. Scientists or philosophers might say that we understand or anyway have
theories about matter, and consciousness must fit into this understanding. We
should not admit that consciousness is some ghostly stuff floating above and
interacting with matter. Why not? If we have experience
of being conscious over and above our experience of those things of which we
are conscious, then we should allow that consciousness is something in addition to them. We won’t duplicate
entities unreasonably – but at the same time, we shouldn’t fall into the trap
of saying there must be only one fundamental type of thing in the world. Entia praeter necessitatem nec multiplicanda -- nec diminuenda!
6. When we speak of what consciousness is made of, we speak of things like perceptions, feelings, ideas, and experiences. Through analysis we resolve these into their basic components -- concepts and colors, to take the most noted examples. But if we ask what at the most basic level a concept is, or what a color is -- we are at a loss. Is the situation any better, though, when we consider the physical world? Without much reflection or study, we might say that matter is essentially that which is solid and take it for granted that some of the things we encounter are solid, others not. After a little reflection, we allow that some things are more solid and some things less so. But what is solidity itself? Those who have done a great deal of research inform us that the really essential things are forces; we can think of matter as a capacity or tendency to push and pull. But something still, I suppose, must be pushed or pulled, and why there is pushing and pulling at all is another "mystery". So we could say, "Apart from what matter does, we don't know what it is at all or why it does it," and feel very puzzled. But this isn't a question upon which progress can be made.
7. A little reflection on the logic of the situation reveals why (and this, too, is well known): to answer the question, what something is made of, you must say that it is made of this or that other thing. But the question just as well arises in the second case, and so on ad infinitum. Either you stop somewhere, or you go on forever. If you stop somewhere, you're going to have to be satisfied with what you stop at. If you don't stop, on the other hand, it seems you will have no more reason to feel satisfied at the next level down then you already do at this level.
8. I make this familiar argument not because I believe it is pointless to ask what things are made of, but because I want to reiterate that whatever the purpose of that question, it is not to help us understand what something is. I don't doubt that we understand the materials around us better when we understand they are made of something common to them, but we do not understand matter itself when we apply the same question to it. The question, "What is it made of?" is apt for certain inquiries, but is useless outside of them.
9. You might be ready to object that no one will confuse the question, "What is matter?" with the question "What is matter made of?" but I think the same confusion exists in the case where we ask, "What is consciousness made of?" Consciousness has certain components, but to say that these must be made of something makes no more sense than it does to say that matter itself must be made of something.
10. There is one question that might be interesting, which is how the elements of consciousness are different from the elements of material, so that we have two kinds of things -- is that, then, a genuine question about consciousness? But whatever we say on that score, we shouldn't be puzzled that there are two kinds of thing in the world instead of one. It would have to be just as puzzling if there were one kind of thing in the world instead of two. Or that there are two kinds of thing in the world instead of ten.
11. The second common source of puzzlement about consciousness is how it causes the body to move, or in general how it is connected to the body. There is also, I think, no special puzzle about this question. In order to see there is no special puzzle, we only need to consider what kinds of questions about cause and effect are legitimate. When we have become accustomed to using a certain machine in a certain way, and the machine breaks, we are vexed and legitimately wonder why the machine no longer works as it used to and how to fix it. Pushing a button begins a chain of events that ends with the thing we desire. We ask what the problem is and know that something or things along the chain have broken. The answer to our question is practical as well as theoretical, because once we know where the problem is, we can fix it and restore the machine to "working order."
12. Questions about cause when there is no such chain, but only proximate incidents, are not like this (Hume). Aside from the fact that the second always occurs with the first, we know nothing about the matter. At the same time, we do manage to learn, in this way, that such a relationship exists. How we can learn this from information that seems an insufficient grounds for that conclusion is a puzzle, perhaps even a puzzle of the "existential" type that makes me uneasy -- but nevertheless, we do. From this reasoning, it follows, first, that we can know that the "soul" moves the body, simply because we have experience of this effect, but second and more importantly, that it is no use asking why or how this happens. There is no conceivable chain of events mediating between the impulse of one and the motion of the other. Indeed, we are not even aware of such a chain (Hume). For this reason, I conclude that those who ask how the mind moves the body are again confusing the sorts of questions we can legitimately answer (why did the machine break) with the sorts of questions that have no answer (why did the ball move on impact). There is, to be sure, a puzzle here, but it is not a puzzle about consciousness. And even having granted that it is a puzzle, I think we have little hope of solving it. For myself, this is a case where we ought to seek solace from our skepticism in daily life and not to conquer it (Hume).
13. Be that as it may, I can conceive of one objection to this line of reasoning, according to which consciousness does operate like a machine. This objection begins with the observation that after we are paralyzed, or even in the midst of deep sleep, the body does not obey our will in way to which we have grown accustomed. We represent to ourselves and "feel" the motion we want, but the motion does not come. We notice a great strain, as if we were striving after something, but whatever we are striving after, we do not achieve our aim. A neuro-scientist might say that those parts of brain which normally become aroused when we will the movement are again active, but they do not connect with those other parts of our brain which begin the impulse. This suggests that our consciousness somehow operates to activate parts of our brain, just as if we were pushing the button on a machine that then "moves" our body. And yet we are not aware of our brain at all, but only of the area of our body that we want to move but does not. How does consciousness, one might ask, "know" where to push the button or which button to push?
14. I answer that there is no hidden process here, no mysterious nexus between consciousness and the brain, which, closely scrutinized, could impart to us the secret of their union. This experience makes clear, on the other hand, that consciousness and the body (the brain) must operate together. I desire to move my finger, and my finger moves, but it is a condition of this motion that my brain be functioning properly. I do not know and cannot know how my own will and the activity of my brain "coordinate." To think that they coordinate or somehow exchange information is part of the same mistake by which we imagine, in place of the sequence of actions we are aware of, some deeper, invisible sequence leading from one to the other. Indeed, this must always be how we think when we imagine a hidden principle linking the cause with the effect: we imagine, in place of the simple relationship which we do understand but cannot explain, a more labored connection that we do not understand but could explain. This is one mistake.
15. There is another mistake that seduces us in this case, however: we think that if we see a connection between the activity of our brain and the motion of our limbs, that we have found the cause of the action. We eliminate the efficacy of the mind on the supposition that events cannot have more than one cause and then are left baffled: "The body moves the body. What work then is there for the mind?" Part of what seduces us is that our observation has the all the makings of an experiment: "Either the mind or the body may be the cause of motion in the body, but we find that, removing the body, the motion does not occur, so it is the body and not the mind by which the body moves." The problem with this experiment is two-fold: first, we have not been able to observe what would happen were the mind removed, so that the body alone functioned to move itself -- but second, and more importantly, our very hypothesis, which implies that one or the other of these two things must be responsible for moving the body, is flawed, for it may be moved by both at once.
16. In short, it is curious to observe that the mind and body work in unison to produce physical motion or, to anticipate a subject I will soon turn to, that motion has a subjective as well as an objective side to it. But though it is curious, we should see, once we understand what we can and cannot explain about causes, that there is no way to satisfy our curiosity. This is not because one matter in particular, the functioning of the mind, is beyond our capacity to know, but because every kind of functioning is a mystery. Well, you may call the link between cause and effect a mystery, but you can just as easily say that this relationship is given, and when you think about it in the right way, as the basis of explanations that are not given, you will not be puzzled by it.
17. Here I return to my original point about Aristotle: we might begin the study of philosophy or mathematics by wondering how some axiom could be true, but what shows our knowledge of the subject is our familiarity with the axiom, which we become accustomed to use to explain and prove many things, all the while having ceased to wonder about it. My own opinion (and perhaps that of the majority of men) is that it is not good to wonder about something that cannot be explained. We require just enough philosophy to see that the explanation we are after does not exist, and not so much as we vainly imagine could supply it.
TO BE CONTINUED?
6. When we speak of what consciousness is made of, we speak of things like perceptions, feelings, ideas, and experiences. Through analysis we resolve these into their basic components -- concepts and colors, to take the most noted examples. But if we ask what at the most basic level a concept is, or what a color is -- we are at a loss. Is the situation any better, though, when we consider the physical world? Without much reflection or study, we might say that matter is essentially that which is solid and take it for granted that some of the things we encounter are solid, others not. After a little reflection, we allow that some things are more solid and some things less so. But what is solidity itself? Those who have done a great deal of research inform us that the really essential things are forces; we can think of matter as a capacity or tendency to push and pull. But something still, I suppose, must be pushed or pulled, and why there is pushing and pulling at all is another "mystery". So we could say, "Apart from what matter does, we don't know what it is at all or why it does it," and feel very puzzled. But this isn't a question upon which progress can be made.
7. A little reflection on the logic of the situation reveals why (and this, too, is well known): to answer the question, what something is made of, you must say that it is made of this or that other thing. But the question just as well arises in the second case, and so on ad infinitum. Either you stop somewhere, or you go on forever. If you stop somewhere, you're going to have to be satisfied with what you stop at. If you don't stop, on the other hand, it seems you will have no more reason to feel satisfied at the next level down then you already do at this level.
8. I make this familiar argument not because I believe it is pointless to ask what things are made of, but because I want to reiterate that whatever the purpose of that question, it is not to help us understand what something is. I don't doubt that we understand the materials around us better when we understand they are made of something common to them, but we do not understand matter itself when we apply the same question to it. The question, "What is it made of?" is apt for certain inquiries, but is useless outside of them.
9. You might be ready to object that no one will confuse the question, "What is matter?" with the question "What is matter made of?" but I think the same confusion exists in the case where we ask, "What is consciousness made of?" Consciousness has certain components, but to say that these must be made of something makes no more sense than it does to say that matter itself must be made of something.
10. There is one question that might be interesting, which is how the elements of consciousness are different from the elements of material, so that we have two kinds of things -- is that, then, a genuine question about consciousness? But whatever we say on that score, we shouldn't be puzzled that there are two kinds of thing in the world instead of one. It would have to be just as puzzling if there were one kind of thing in the world instead of two. Or that there are two kinds of thing in the world instead of ten.
11. The second common source of puzzlement about consciousness is how it causes the body to move, or in general how it is connected to the body. There is also, I think, no special puzzle about this question. In order to see there is no special puzzle, we only need to consider what kinds of questions about cause and effect are legitimate. When we have become accustomed to using a certain machine in a certain way, and the machine breaks, we are vexed and legitimately wonder why the machine no longer works as it used to and how to fix it. Pushing a button begins a chain of events that ends with the thing we desire. We ask what the problem is and know that something or things along the chain have broken. The answer to our question is practical as well as theoretical, because once we know where the problem is, we can fix it and restore the machine to "working order."
12. Questions about cause when there is no such chain, but only proximate incidents, are not like this (Hume). Aside from the fact that the second always occurs with the first, we know nothing about the matter. At the same time, we do manage to learn, in this way, that such a relationship exists. How we can learn this from information that seems an insufficient grounds for that conclusion is a puzzle, perhaps even a puzzle of the "existential" type that makes me uneasy -- but nevertheless, we do. From this reasoning, it follows, first, that we can know that the "soul" moves the body, simply because we have experience of this effect, but second and more importantly, that it is no use asking why or how this happens. There is no conceivable chain of events mediating between the impulse of one and the motion of the other. Indeed, we are not even aware of such a chain (Hume). For this reason, I conclude that those who ask how the mind moves the body are again confusing the sorts of questions we can legitimately answer (why did the machine break) with the sorts of questions that have no answer (why did the ball move on impact). There is, to be sure, a puzzle here, but it is not a puzzle about consciousness. And even having granted that it is a puzzle, I think we have little hope of solving it. For myself, this is a case where we ought to seek solace from our skepticism in daily life and not to conquer it (Hume).
13. Be that as it may, I can conceive of one objection to this line of reasoning, according to which consciousness does operate like a machine. This objection begins with the observation that after we are paralyzed, or even in the midst of deep sleep, the body does not obey our will in way to which we have grown accustomed. We represent to ourselves and "feel" the motion we want, but the motion does not come. We notice a great strain, as if we were striving after something, but whatever we are striving after, we do not achieve our aim. A neuro-scientist might say that those parts of brain which normally become aroused when we will the movement are again active, but they do not connect with those other parts of our brain which begin the impulse. This suggests that our consciousness somehow operates to activate parts of our brain, just as if we were pushing the button on a machine that then "moves" our body. And yet we are not aware of our brain at all, but only of the area of our body that we want to move but does not. How does consciousness, one might ask, "know" where to push the button or which button to push?
14. I answer that there is no hidden process here, no mysterious nexus between consciousness and the brain, which, closely scrutinized, could impart to us the secret of their union. This experience makes clear, on the other hand, that consciousness and the body (the brain) must operate together. I desire to move my finger, and my finger moves, but it is a condition of this motion that my brain be functioning properly. I do not know and cannot know how my own will and the activity of my brain "coordinate." To think that they coordinate or somehow exchange information is part of the same mistake by which we imagine, in place of the sequence of actions we are aware of, some deeper, invisible sequence leading from one to the other. Indeed, this must always be how we think when we imagine a hidden principle linking the cause with the effect: we imagine, in place of the simple relationship which we do understand but cannot explain, a more labored connection that we do not understand but could explain. This is one mistake.
15. There is another mistake that seduces us in this case, however: we think that if we see a connection between the activity of our brain and the motion of our limbs, that we have found the cause of the action. We eliminate the efficacy of the mind on the supposition that events cannot have more than one cause and then are left baffled: "The body moves the body. What work then is there for the mind?" Part of what seduces us is that our observation has the all the makings of an experiment: "Either the mind or the body may be the cause of motion in the body, but we find that, removing the body, the motion does not occur, so it is the body and not the mind by which the body moves." The problem with this experiment is two-fold: first, we have not been able to observe what would happen were the mind removed, so that the body alone functioned to move itself -- but second, and more importantly, our very hypothesis, which implies that one or the other of these two things must be responsible for moving the body, is flawed, for it may be moved by both at once.
16. In short, it is curious to observe that the mind and body work in unison to produce physical motion or, to anticipate a subject I will soon turn to, that motion has a subjective as well as an objective side to it. But though it is curious, we should see, once we understand what we can and cannot explain about causes, that there is no way to satisfy our curiosity. This is not because one matter in particular, the functioning of the mind, is beyond our capacity to know, but because every kind of functioning is a mystery. Well, you may call the link between cause and effect a mystery, but you can just as easily say that this relationship is given, and when you think about it in the right way, as the basis of explanations that are not given, you will not be puzzled by it.
17. Here I return to my original point about Aristotle: we might begin the study of philosophy or mathematics by wondering how some axiom could be true, but what shows our knowledge of the subject is our familiarity with the axiom, which we become accustomed to use to explain and prove many things, all the while having ceased to wonder about it. My own opinion (and perhaps that of the majority of men) is that it is not good to wonder about something that cannot be explained. We require just enough philosophy to see that the explanation we are after does not exist, and not so much as we vainly imagine could supply it.
TO BE CONTINUED?
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